Port Authority, Southwark Playhouse - review

He plays Dermot, an engaging middle-aged chancer. Blotting out his anxieties with alcohol and blarney, he is the most memorable of the characters portrayed in this trio of interwoven monologues. Each dwells on that familiar artistic subject, "what might have been". McPherson is concerned with love and the way men define themselves through their clumsy relationships with women.

The three characters represent three generations of dysfunctional Irishmen. All are passive, crippled by an inability to seize their chances. They are linked by more than this, but the links aren't revealed for some time, and the play, like the New York bus station of its title, looks as if it is intended to exhibit the geometry of parallel lives.

The youngest of the three men is Kevin, who has lately found himself shacked up with unfamiliar companions. Smitten with one of them, he's excited by the possibilities offered by even the most everyday activity. The oldest is Joe, who lives in a retirement home and is intrigued by the arrival of a mysterious package. And then there's Dermot, who stumbles into a peachy job for which he is completely unqualified. His good fortune makes him shrug; we know that soon enough reality will pierce the cocoon of his fantasy.

McPherson's writing is flecked with quiet mournfulness. Its mixture of the sad and the banal is also seasoned with moments of lyricism and ribald humour.

There's a lot here for the actors to savour. O'Hanlon's performance is full of pathos. Andrew Nolan is vigorous and appealing as the eager Kevin. John Rogan's Joe is a mannered, forgetful yet oddly charming man, whose pronouncements occasionally give him the air of a soothsayer.

But the production doesn't grip us. Although McPherson's piece is inherently static, the decision to seat the actors in front of an array of empty crates emphasises the lack of vitality. And while the vault of the Southwark Playhouse is atmospheric, its echoing acoustic makes the writing feel less raw and intimate than is needed.

Until February 18 (020 7407 0234, southwarkplayhouse.co.uk)

Port Authority